• Chris Moneymaker Wsop Win
• Chris Moneymaker Today

1. Chris Moneymaker has won 1 bracelets and 0 rings for total earnings of $2,584,979. See all events where they placed in-the-money.
2. Before he knew it, Chris had a $10,000 WSOP Main Event package that included a spot in the world’s richest poker tournament. The rest, as they say, is history. Chris went on to win that live tournament, netting $2.5 million in prize money and securing his place in history. Without Chris Moneymaker, Americas Cardroom might not even be a thing.

Phil Ivey and Chris Moneymaker squared off on the 2003 World Series of Poker Main Event final table bubble in a hand that went down in history as one of the.

What if we told you that an accountant from Tennessee would single-handedly ignite the poker boom? What if we told you that his name was Moneymaker and it wasn’t a typo or a joke played by someone actually named Morrison, Morales, or Monaghan? What if we told you that his win would kickstart an exponential rise in WSOP Main Event field sizes where there would be a ten-fold increase over the next three years?

Chris Moneymaker’s improbable victory in the 2003 World Series of Poker Main Event changed poker forever.

After winning an online satellite for just $86 while working as an accountant, Moneymaker made the trip to the 2003 World Series of Poker to participate in the Main Event. He was just another hopeful in the 839-player field looking to drag a few pots, play with a few legends of the game, and take home a good story to tell his friends and family. The pots continued to be pushed his way as the legends began to fall.

Moneymaker navigated his way firstly into the money-paying top 63-places before finding himself at the final table alongside 1995 World Champion Dan Harrington and respected pros David Grey, Amir Vahedi, Jason Lester, and Sammy Farha. After five days of play battling some of the world’s most talented poker players, Moneymaker would defeat Farha heads-up to win the WSOP bracelet and collect the $2.5 million first-place prize while being crowned the 2003 World Champion.

There is a big difference in taking a seat on Day 1 versus being one of the final few players remaining.

“The first two days I was just being really cautious and really careful,” Moneymaker said to Remko Rinkema in the Run it Back with Chris Moneymaker – 2003 WSOP Main Event video. “I didn’t know anyone in poker except for Johnny Chan, Doyle Brunson, and Phil Hellmuth.”

“Survival. That was my whole attitude for the majority of the days. Just make it through the day. Every day I make it through the day I get closer to making significant money. I just tried to play really tight and really secure. Didn’t really take too many chances I felt like everybody always had a better hand than me, or could out-read me or out-play me. So I was just really cautious for the first four days.”

Poker players and fans around the world recall watching the 2003 WSOP Main Event on ESPN as the time they learned about the game of poker, and subsequently fell in love with it. ESPN filmed seven episodes of the 2003 WSOP Main Event with each episode focusing on the feature table and notable players remaining. Day 1 and 2 were highlighted by defending champion Robert Varkonyi, along with previous champions Doyle Brunson and Phil Hellmuth.

Day 3 action was split over two episodes, and part one captured 1987 and 1988 World Champion Johnny Chan on the feature table along with Howard Lederer and Moneymaker. On Run it Back with Chris Moneymaker – 2003 WSOP Main Event, Rinkema sits with Moneymaker and discusses the action from Day 3 and 4 of the 2003 WSOP Main Event. Drawing a table with Johnny Chan, Howard Lederer, and Paul Darden is intimidating. But throw in lights and cameras, and it takes it to a whole new level.

“This is the start of Day 3 and I’ll remember this day because I was looking for my table and trying to find out where I was,” Moneymaker said. “I had no idea. I looked all around the room for it and couldn’t find it and I had to ask someone and I was told I was on the TV table. It’s not what you want to hear. I didn’t want to mess up.”

“I had Johnny Chan at the table. So I was told to be careful of him and Howard Lederer. At the end of the day it was all about Johnny Chan. He was the guy that was in Rounders. He was the guy that I knew was a World Champion. These other guys weren’t World Champions.”

The fifth episode sees just 27 players return to the penultimate day of play, and action would begin with Hellmuth heading to the rail as play concludes with the final table set. The final two episodes would showcase the final table, and with part one highlighting hands involving Sammy Farha and Amir Vahedi, it would be the final episode where Moneymaker shines.

Awarded the “Most Memorable TV Hand” at the WSOP First Fifty Honors in 2019, Moneymaker made a river all-in bluff with king-high to prompt Farha to fold a pair of nines. That hand swung the momentum of the heads-up match into Moneymaker’s favor, and on the final hand Farha would commit the last of chips with top pair against Moneymaker’s bottom two pair. Moneymaker improved to a full house on the river and was crowned the 2003 WSOP Main Event champion.

The 2003 WSOP Main Event was broadcast on ESPN and is now available on PokerGO. Select your favorite episode from the overview below and start watching right now.

World Series of Poker Main Event coverage is available right now on PokerGO. Check out the WSOP Classic collection and watch the best moments from past Main Events including Johnny Chan’s quest for a third title, the meteoric rise of Chris Moneymaker, and Joe Cada setting the record as youngest champion.

Chris Moneymaker Wsop Win

One month ago, Chris Moneymaker shocked the poker community when he decided to leave PokerStars after 17 years. The legendary 2003 WSOP Main Event champion isn’t retiring from poker, however. Instead, he found a new opportunity within the poker industry at Americas Cardroom, which he discussed with Poker.org.

Chris Moneymaker Today

Listen to Poker.org’s exclusive interview with 2003 WSOP champ Chris Moneymaker:

Following his decision to bolt from the world’s largest poker site, the champ sought a new opportunity. He wanted to continue working in the poker industry, and his options were plentiful. Promoting the game comes naturally to one of poker’s top ambassadors.

But Moneymaker wants to stay closer to home in Mississippi, and would like to avoid traveling all around the world for work. So, he found an opportunity to promote a poker site that is available in the United States, unlike PokerStars.

“I’m 45 years old, I’ve got three kids, I can’t not work,” Moneymaker, a former accountant said in an interview with Poker.org. “But I’m not qualified for anything anymore. I couldn’t do your taxes as good as H&R Block could. My only qualification at this point in life is, ‘do you want fries with that?'”

Chris Moneymaker On His Decision to Join Americas Cardroom

You won’t be greeted by Chris Moneymaker at your local McDonald’s any time soon. The Poker Hall of Famer, instead, is joining Americas Cardroom, a U.S.-facing poker site that offers Bitcoin deposits and withdrawals, and has some familiar faces on board, such as vloggers Ryan Depaulo and Jeff Boski. As of February 3, he becomes the face of the poker site, a responsibility he’s excited to tackle.

Moneymaker weighed other career options following his departure from PokerStars. He even considered opening a card room in Texas, and he still might do that someday. But, as he said, “in the meantime, as I’m going through this process, I’m playing online poker, and I’m starting to do pretty well,” and then he connected with Phil Nagy, the CEO of Winning Poker Network, which owns ACR.

“Somehow we started a conversation,” he said of his new boss. “I heard what (ACR) was doing, and I heard all the improvements they’ve been making to the site and how they’re fighting bots. And basically to me it seemed like PokerStars did back in 2004, 2005. They’re really trying to grow the game.”

Moneymaker praised the outspoken Nagy, and he’s clearly appreciative of the opportunity. He could have signed on for another year with PokerStars and essentially been paid to do very little. But he liked what Nagy sold him, and he’s excited to move forward with a new patch on his clothes.

Moneymaker on the COVID-19 Pandemic

Chris Moneymaker is taking the coronavirus seriously and has avoided playing live poker since March. His new role with ACR provides an opportunity he couldn’t get from PokerStars without traveling: playing online at the poker site he represents.

“I don’t know when COVID is gonna go away,” Moneymaker said. “We don’t know what this virus is gonna hold for us. We’re hoping this year is going to be better as far as travel and getting out and being able to do things. But they’re having so many strains and all this other stuff come out, you just never know when it’s going to be.”

Living in Mississippi, hundreds of miles away from New Jersey where PokerStars is available, made it difficult for Moneymaker to play on the poker site he was paid to promote. He’d already been playing on ACR and enjoys the site, so naturally it was a perfect fit.

Moneymaker can now stay home with his family and play online poker at the site he works for. No more constant traveling to the Northeast, leaving his family behind for work.

“I could be locked up in my house for another six months or a year,” Moneymaker says. “I want to be able to play poker and be proud of being able to play and support the site that I’m playing on, and that was ACR.”

Americas Cardroom is part of the Winning Poker Network. The poker site is currently wrapping up a massive Venom poker tournament, which guaranteed an unthinkable $8 million prize pool, a U.S. online poker record.

Moneymaker appeared as a commentator on ACR’s Twitch channel at the Venom final table on Wednesday. It was his first order of business as the newest ambassador for Americas Cardroom.

It may take a bit of time for the poker community to get used to seeing Chris Moneymaker patched up with a logo that isn’t PokerStars. In 2019, Daniel Negreanu left the same poker site after 12 years and it felt strange to many when he began wearing a GGPoker patch.

But all good things must come to an end, and when they do, new opportunities arise. Chris Moneymaker is now the face of Americas Cardroom. If you want to take a shot at beating up on a former world champion on the virtual felt, he’ll be playing regularly on ACR.

“I’ll probably play a whole lot of different things,” the poker champ said when asked where his fans can find him on ACR. “I’ve been playing the $1k’s and the $600’s, playing $25/$50 PLO. And I’ll still be playing that stuff. But I’ll also venture down and cplay some $1/$2 no-limit, and play some $10 tournaments.”

Featured image source: Americas Cardroom